Disastrous Fire in Christchurch Business Block

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26622, 19 November 1947, Page 4

Disastrous Fire in Christchurch Business Block

FULL EXTENT NOT YET KNOWN

P.A. CHRISTCHURCH, Nov. 18. In one of the greatest fire tragedies in the history of New Zealand, 28 persons perished, one died from injuries, an unknown number are missing, and two are seriously injured in hospital. The tragedy occurred this afternoon when, within an hour, a terrible fire swept through a one-acre block of three-storied buildings occupied by J. Ballantyne and Co., Ltd., at the corner of Cashel and Colombo streets. The full extent of the tragedy will probably not be known for several days, but recovery operations were suspended at nightfall with the ghastly certain knowledge that other bodies were lying in the smouldering shell.

The fiercest ever seen in Christchurch, the fire, which began in the basement of the furniture section, the furthest south in Colombo street, swept with amazing swiftness through the big block. The fire was so intense that the Oamaru stone face of parts of the building was turned into lime. For those in neighbouring buildings who heard the screams of women and saw them moving frantically about in the inferno, those minutes will forever remain seared on their memories. Spectators of a fearful panic, with a tragically inevitable end, they were helpless. Any hope of rescue of other than those who risked life by jumping from windows—three girls only took the leap—or climbing out to safety were gone by the time the fire brigade arrived.

Aided by volunteers from a nearby engineering works, firemen, scorched by heat which cracked windows 80 yards away, directed 6000 gallons of water a minute from many hoses into the building. Although the fire was beyond control and was raging right over the whole building when the brigade arrived, it was checked before it reached the tearooms in the Cashel street end of the block. At several stages, nearby buildings "were menaced by cascades of embers and an old building occupied by Wallace and Co., Chemists, at the northern corner of Cashel and Colombo street actually caught fire.*

The bodies recovered so far were taken from the ruins inside the main entrance and in part of the Colombo street frontage. With the greater part of the debris yet to be searched, the remains of bodies were visible in the ruins hanging from the rafters and lying on top of the fire escape. A staff of 300 was employed by the firm. The exact number of casualties was not known to-night and the horrible probability is that an unknown number of customers also perished. Only the danger of the collapse of the walls of the store caused recovery work to be suspended and it will not be resumed until the shell is made safe or demolished. The death roll must therefore be indefinite until a check is made on every person known to have been in the building or who was possibly in the building. The death roll to-night, however, made Ballantyne’s fire the worst fire disaster, except the Seacliff Hospital fire, and one of the greatest civil tragedies in New Zealand’s history, the roll being exceeded only in the wreck of the Tararua in 1881 with a loss of 130 lives, the Tarawera explosion in 1886 when 101 died, the wreck of the Wairarapa in 1894 with a loss of 135 lives, the Brunner mine explosion in 1896 causing 67 deaths and the 1931 earthquake at Napier when 251 died.

For 10 minutes thousands were transfixed while Mr Kenneth Ballantyne, a director of the firm, stood at the third floor window with flames about him. He left the window to try to save two girls and on coming back climbed out on the stone parapet of the window below. He was clinging there when he was rescued by firemen on a ladder. Three skeletons, apparently having dropped from upper floors, could be seen in what remained of the furniture section’s display window and when the smoke and flames cleared, the remains of bodies could be seen at the top of the fire escape between the workroom and the store proper.

The magnitude of the disaster struck the fire fighters when they entered the main entrance shortly after 6 o’clock. Bodies were lying in the smouldering ruins and up on the steel rafters two bodies were hanging. For more than an hour firemen, policemen and voluntary workers carried from the ruins the remains of charred bodies wrapped in tarpaulins and two hearses ran a service to the morgue. The public, happily, was roped off a hundred yards or more away and saw nothing of the terrible recovery work.